Blog 3

At Janssen I am mainly performing tasks, which helps the Accounts Receivable lady. I have to match up the credit notes with invoices on the systems, follow up customers to pay their invoices. This means I have a lot of direct contact with our Customers and Wholesalers Financial Accounting teams. When contacting these teams I have put into practice a lot of the communication skills we learnt in Management in the first semester last year. I have had to communicate with them politely but whilst also being assertive and making sure that they pay and understanding that they have to pay on time.

I have also just finished a project that I was working on which was to collect all the claims that are withstanding against Janssen (rebate, stock and pricing) and somehow combine them all onto a spreadsheet. However, I was told to do it using formulas so that it would take 5 minutes to update the spreadsheet in following months instead of hours doing it manually.

The main area where I can think of work that I have learnt at uni relating to the tasks I am performing at Janssen was when I had to reformat the reconciliations for the Finance Department. On this new format of the recs they wanted a section called processes, where I had to use journal entries that I learnt throughout both semesters last year. I had to write for the recs, which accounts were being debited and credited. Through having previously learnt about journal entries at uni, I was able to understand and know why certain accounts were being Cr and others Dr.

Recently I have also noticed a lot of the content that we are learning at the moment in Management Accounting relating to quite a few of my every day tasks. At work I have noticed, the flow charts for processes in our SOP’s, SOX reports and even managers printing out flow charts when figuring out ways to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of tasks. As Janssen have been seeing a huge change in the structure of the organization, I have been able to experience how they are using different processes to improve the connection of the worldwide branches of Janssen. In our monthly finance meeting on last Thursday, our Director talked about a new software being developed which will be able to link the financial sectors of Janssen throughout the world. They are creating and efficient system to improve the communication throughout the world. At the moment Janssen need to improve this in order for them as a global company to keep on growing.

When first thinking of the type of tasks I would be performing at Janssen, I assumed I would have a few projects, tasks that would help me improve my excel skills and other just day to day jobs. I have been performing these types of tasks, but I did not expect to be given jobs where if I did something wrong I could have an exemption against my name from an auditor. Such as when releasing sales without appropriate reasoning and signatures for every release we could fail an audit. I am the person responsible for obtaining these signatures and giving my manager/financial control evidence to why they should approve the release.

One part I found particularly surprising was the amount of contact that we actually have with the patients who use the pharmaceuticals that Janssen supplies. My desk is right next to Customer Service, where they speak directly to patients very occasionally, and hearing about how they have to limit supplies and listen to see who is generally in need and there is a shortage of a certain supply, is extremely interesting and intriguing. I am the person who then releases the sales of these products so that the patients/customers are able to use them.

Blog 2

·      When coming into the workplace I was surprised at how much everyone interacted. Many of the roles and tasks employees are given do not involve just one person but many. It is extremely rare to have a day when you are not interacting with more than one person to complete the tasks you are given, whether you are an Intern or the Financial Controller/Director.

·      I find that these interactions with others in the workplace, have strengthened and improved my professional interpersonal skills. These interactions have also allowed me to form professional relationships with others who I work with, not just on my team but also throughout the whole Business Strategic Group. These relationships have impacted my work environment, making me feel more confident and comfortable with approaching and asking for help when I do not understand a task/need help with certain steps. It has also given me the opportunity to ask for further work, in different areas of Finance.

·      Teamwork and collaboration exists in many of the daily tasks, as quite a few of the employee’s tasks/jobs interlink with each other. For example, I interact with the Customer Service employees often with the release of sales. They electronically release the sales. Before they allow this I have to consult the Accounts Receviable lady to discuss and make a judgement call to release the sales if they are over their credit limit. To do this we have to look at the Customers account, their outstanding invoices and credit notes and determine whether they are reliable and whether its suitable to allow them to go over their credit limit.

·      In Janssen I have had a huge experience with working in teams and collaborating with different areas (business intelligence, management accounting and payroll teams). With BI I have collaborated with them on numerous occasions in regards to outstanding claims, specifically in respect to pricing and rebate claims. We have had meetings to discuss and determine the correct way to approach and set out the claims. We needed to determine an efficient way of finding and sorting through all the claims, putting them on a spreadsheet with certain information. 

o   Pricing Claims: Were set through on emails, and could be seen on SAP (the software used for invoices and payments) to see where we had been short paid. From this I needed to gather all the information with the correct documentation to process the claims. I would then put all of this in a spreadsheet and pass it onto BI, who look through the data and decide whether the claim should be accepted or rejected. The claims would then be handed back to me, where I would then need to go get BI’s decision approved by the Financial Controller and present to him the reason behind BI’s final decision.

o   We were not working as a team throughout the whole process only for certain areas. One of the main instances was when we were collaborating an effective and efficient way to pursue this task.

·      These interactions and opportunities to collaborate and work with others is definitely enhancing my learning. It gives me the opportunity to not just work with others but also understand their role in the Finance team. I have also been able to improve my interpersonal skills and understand how they are and how extremely important they are to have. Through talking with the graduates, I have learnt that your marks will only get you to a certain stage but it is your interpersonal skills that will get you to the final stages of the interviews and the job.